n't intend to take such a trip--"

He looked up to find her eyes wide and full upon his. Yet her concern
for him touched him not at all. She was his enemy: that fact could never
be forgotten or forgiven.

"I want to hear about it, anyway. I heard in town the river is higher
than it's been for years--due to the Chinook--"

"It _is_ higher than I've ever seen it. But it's reached its peak and
has started to fall, and it won't come up again, at least, till fall.
When the Yuga rises it comes up in a flood, and it falls the same way.
It's gone down quite a little since this morning; by the day after
to-morrow no one could hope to get through Devil's Gate--the first
cataract in the gorge."

"Not even with a canoe? Of course a raft would be broken to pieces."

"Not a canoe, either, in two or three days, if the river falls like it
usually does. But tell me--you aren't serious--"

"I suppose not. But it gets my imagination--just the same. I suppose a
man would average better than twenty miles an hour down through that
gorge, and would come out at _Back There_."

Their talk moved easily to other subjects; yet it seemed to Ben that
some secondary consciousness held up his end of the conversation. His
own deeper self was lost in curious and dark conjectures. Her
description of the river lingered in his thoughts, and he seemed to be
groping for a great inspiration that was hovering just beyond his
reach--as plants grope for light in far-off leafy jungles. He felt that
it would come to him in a moment: he would know the dark relation that
these facts about the river bore to his war with Neilson. It was as if
an inner mind, much more subtle and discerning than his normal
consciousness, had seen great possibilities in them, but as yet had not
divulged their significance.

"I must be going now," the girl was saying. "Father pretty near goes
crazy when I stay away too long. You can't imagine how he loves me and
worries about me--and how fearful he is of me--"

His mind seemed to leap and gather her words. It was true: she was the
joy and the pride and the hope of the old man's life. All his work, his
dreams were for her. And now he remembered a fact that she had told him
on the outward journey: that Ray Brent, the stronger of Neilson's two
subordinates, loved her too.

"To strike at them indirectly--through some one they love--" such had
been his greatest wish. To put them at a disadvantage and overcome his
own--to lead them